


Sehnsucht

by LadyRussellSprouts



Series: Misery [3]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Fate & Destiny, Force Bond (Star Wars), Haunting, Rey Needs A Hug, Scotland, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:53:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23365747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRussellSprouts/pseuds/LadyRussellSprouts
Summary: Sehn·sucht(/ˈzānˌzo͝oKHt/)Nounyearning; wistful longing.Rey is experiencing "sehnsucht" and it's destroying her life. What's a girl to do? Go to Scotland, of course! The land with all the green in the world. Maybe it'll cure whatever is afflicting her.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey
Series: Misery [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662286
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Sehnsucht

Rey could hear the woman crying in her dreams.

She was always crying.

Rey carried that woman's pain like it was her own and it was exhausting.

Her dreams carried visions of this woman in so many different lives. There were dreams that seemed out of this world. Sometimes her eyes were yellow with darkness while she carried the pain of death like an oozing wound. Sometimes she sat old and alone in a hut overlooking an island while strange looking creatures cleaned the huts surrounding her.

There were other dreams that were actually pleasant. The woman would wear a wedding dress while she kissed a handsome man in a pilot's uniform. In another, the woman was elderly and dancing slowly in the arms of an African American man. Their wedding rings glistened in the candlelight while their caregivers watched in envy.

But every dream had something in common. Even when the woman smiled at the partners who loved her, her gaze always moved away to search the crowds. What she yearned for she could not name but she knew she'd never find it again and the pain of it would fill her eyes.

When the dreams ended, Rey woke to tears that drenched her face and a miserable longing for that something the woman had looked for in so many different lives. After particularly bad dreams, ones she couldn't even remember, it would take days to recover and resume her normal life.

Rey didn't understand why this woman haunted her. She hadn't done anything in her life to warrant this kind of punishment. Hadn't she been through enough?

Tears gathered in her swollen eyes as she tried to hold herself together. If she closed her eyes, held her breath and pretended she was being held together in darkness, sometimes the worst of the sobs would pass.

Rey let out a weeping breath but the tears had stilled underneath her lids.

The couple sitting next to her stared at her uncomfortably. They shared a look before scooting further away from her. Well, as far as the seats would allow. Try as she might, Rey couldn't help feeling amused by the situation. A pariah even within the tight and enclosed space of the plane. She could only imagine what she looked like to the couple. A sniffling young woman with wrinkled clothes and bags underneath her eyes. A young woman with problems, problems the couple didn't want to be involved with.

 _Don't give strangers that power over you_ , she could hear her father chide in his brogue. _You know who really loves you_ , he would add with a silly smile.

Taking a steadying breath, she put on her headphones and listened to her playlist. Closing her eyes and focusing on her breathing, she let the music carry her away. As always, she pictured the place that brought her the most joy. It was a green landscape that filled her vision. So much green in all the world.

Rey smiled.

* * *

The fourteen hour international flight had gone as awkwardly as expected. The couple flew from their seats as soon as they could. Rey waited politely for the rest of the passengers to leave before grabbing her luggage and exiting the plane.

 _Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished_ , her mother would intone the Lao Tzu quote when a younger Rey would huff in impatience.

Those quotes seemed to be all that she had left of them. She'd been adopted by her parents after spending years in the foster system. Despite the technicalities, they would always be mom and dad to her. Her parents had been the definition of average. An average couple looking to raise an average child toward an average future. Average was good. Average meant stability. Something that Rey never had until that point.

Last year they died while vacationing in Scotland. They had gone to visit their homeland before they married and moved to the west coast of the United States. It was supposed to be the beginning of their travels in retirement but it had been their last. All it had taken was an unstable car and a turbulent rainstorm.

She had come to Scotland to be closer to their graves. Maybe to stay. She had nothing left tying her to California. Unconsciously, she fingered the space on her left hand where a ring should have been.

At thirty, Rey had become a fair and kind individual due to the safety and stability her parents had provided. They had hoped that she'd have a stable and happy life despite her sad beginnings. There had only been one thing they couldn't expel from her life.

The woman who haunted her dreams.

* * *

The dreams had seemed to come more frequently as her departure date for Scotland neared. Her pillow was consistently in the wash after she slept. Her eyes were so swollen she could barely see in the daylight. Sometimes she didn't sleep. The yearning had been palpable as she tossed and turned in her bed.

Sehnsucht, her ex-fiance, had called it. He had been a linguistics major at the college when they met. Languages had come easily to him in a way that had always amazed her.

"Zan- what?" she had asked in confusion, pulling up the movie they had rented onto the TV screen.

"Sehnsucht," Hux said again, this time slower as he headed toward her on the couch. His perfectly arranged ginger hair bobbed with sure moments, his blue eyes distracted. "It's a German term that roughly translates to an inconsolable yearning. A wistful longing for something that cannot be explained."

She adjusted herself as he molded himself to her side, placing an arm behind her head. She didn't say anything when his hip dug into her stomach. Their bodies had never fit together well but it had felt nice to have a warm body so close.

Sometimes it helped keep the dreams at bay.

Rey contemplated the new word over a few kernels of popcorn, "So I have zan-shook?"

"Sehnsucht," Hux repeated, slightly irritated. "Babe, leave the languages to the experts."

She stiffened at his words and the tone.

Noting his error, he apologized before placing a quick kiss on her forehead.

"I haven't been sleeping well so I'm just more irritated these days," he explained, smoothing the cashmere blanket around them.

Rey immediately felt bad. "I haven't been keeping you up, have I?"

A pause. "No, of course not. Work has been on my mind, that's all."

"How is orientation with Pam going?" Rey asked, trying to be polite.

"Phasma." He corrected her. "She's doing great."

The conversation ended as Hux's cell phone rang. Pulling away from her, he reached for the phone and eyed the caller.

 _Speak of the devil_ , Rey had thought to herself, recognizing the woman's professional photo flashing across the phone screen. Wondering why he was accepting a work call during the weekend, she had watched as Hux left the room and left her to watch the movie alone.

Upon reflection, Rey should have known. It had been something in the way he said the woman's name. Something in the way his strawberry red brows had furrowed before smoothing quickly. When he had asked for the ring back, Rey couldn't find it within herself to be mad. When the invitation had come in the mail months later with gold lettering entwining their names, Rey couldn't find it within herself to be sad. When that woman had walked down the aisle in her tall, beautiful and blonde glory and he placed the ring on her finger, Rey couldn't find it within herself to feel anything at all.

The dreams, the misery, the longing all felt like a punishment. A punishment that had bled into her life until the woman's misery was becoming her own.

The only people she could call family were gone.

The man she had wanted to marry didn't want her anymore.

She had no one. She was alone.

What had she done to deserve this, she contemplated as she laid under the comfort of quilts and blankets.

Sometimes she just wanted it to end.

* * *

There was blood. So much blood.

Heavy, burdened footsteps inched their way into her dimming vision. The world tilted as he pulled her into his arms. His warmth battled the chill that was overtaking her. A barely-there-tug echoed inside of her as if he was gently testing that she still lived. His hands rose to place pressure on the bleeding artery but they hovered in despair. There was nothing to hold. The wound was merely tendon and broken rib bones. Her heart beat stuttered in its cage.

She wanted to tell him how much she loved him. All she had wanted in this life was his love. She couldn't utter any sound. Instead, she tried to focus her eyes on his face and let out her final breath.

The world whirled around her as she became weightless and Rey stood in the middle of the clearing watching as the man hovered over the crying woman's corpse.

Kylo Ren's howl crushed her spirit, a banshee's cry in the darkness that encroached the clearing. Her name was a chant on his tongue, summoning her back to life.

"I love you," he confessed. "I couldn't say it before but-"

Overtaken by a sob, he pulled the corpse closer as if his heart could share its secret. The thump thump thump of his heart beat a coded message about his love for her. It was unfortunate that she could no longer hear it, that she would never know.

A whisper of the bond that bound them together echoed in the air surrounding Rey. She could feel it unraveling. The weight holding her spirit to the meadow started to lift and she could feel herself pulling away.

His body stiffened as if registering the break inside of his own soul. Pulling away from the corpse, he looked around. The tears stopped as panic set in.

"Please," he begged the nothingness around him. "Bring her back."

He looked down at her pale face, his body trembling in misery. At the emptiness that filled him as her end of the bond untethered itself.

"I'll be good," he promised looking into the eyes of her corpse. "I've never deserved you, Rey but I will be good to replace all the bad that I've ever done. I would give anything so that you can live."

Shadows enclosed the clearing and a tense silence held the meadow after his declaration.

 _Anything?_ the darkness whispered across his consciousness.

"Yes."

_A life for a life. That is all that is within my power._

"Anything." He repeated in a dead voice.

_You break laws with this covenant, young Solo. You will be punished by those even stronger than me._

"I don't care. As long as she lives."

Rey's heart pounded as she watched Kylo's form slump not a moment later. He held onto her until the end. The darkness left the clearing as soon as the bargain was struck. A dark cloud that had rolled past the burning sun. The corpse twitched as Kylo's body cooled but Rey did not return to the body. Instead, she watched as the woman from her dreams opened her eyes, saw the body of her dead lover and wailed. The same sound in every dream. The same recognition that something inside her had been erased.

* * *

Rey had woken in her room on a broken wail. Shaking, she had sobbed until she could not breathe, until her brain felt like it would explode from the pressure.

For a week, she'd been in Scotland. For a week, she'd woken from the same dream. The dream she could never remember but left her melancholic.

This time she had remembered and it tore her apart. None of her tricks had worked-closing her eyes and pretending to be held, the green landscape that always centered her. None of it. She had felt like she was falling apart.

She grimaced in embarrassment remembering how the Bed and Breakfast owners had broken down her door. The sweet Scottish couple had stared at her in complete confusion. She was alone. No one was attacking her as they had thought. It had only taken a moment for the situation to register before they both jumped into action. Holding Rey close to her bosom, the wife had murmured motherly nothings and held Rey until she shushed. The husband had gone to make her some tea with a splash of whiskey.

Thankful and embarrassed for their attentiveness, she had offered to pay for the broken door. She left when the sun rose and hadn't returned. Instead, she had opted for a walk across the lush landscape, letting the Scottish moors lead her where they may. She walked in any direction away from people, needing peace and quiet. She had walked until the landscape had dimmed as the sun began to lower in the clouds behind her.

Unease took hold of Rey as the sun set and no trail appeared in front of her. She wasn't someone who could not navigate. She was sure she had come this way. The lights of the town blinked mockingly through the trees. Huffing in irritation, she walked faster, estimating that she only had one mile left.

She let out a breath of relief when she spotted the familiar stone wall. Using it as a guide, she felt safer as she passed several gates leading toward the farmhouses outside of town. Her pace slowed. She found herself outside the gates of an abandoned castle. Confused, she glanced at the terrain around her. How had she ended up here?

She didn't have time to further her contemplation as storm clouds rolled in and immediately drenched her clothes. With a yelp, she fled toward the front door of the castle, not noticing the way it closed softly behind her.

Shivering, she took in her surroundings in the front hall. A single lit candle sat on the table stand.

Who had left this candle here?

She tried to calm herself down as she grabbed the candle and illuminated the archways littered with shadow and cobwebs. A scraping caught her attention and grew louder as she passed the rooms that looked like the kitchens. Glancing around her, she confirmed that she was still alone as she approached stairs leading down into the heart of the castle. Maybe it was a cat who was wandering in the shadows looking for food. It was a kitchen after all. She had seen plenty of stray cats padding along on her walk this morning.

Soft crying echoed from the stairs.

Rey froze.

A chill ran down her spine. The sound was more pronounced in the silence of the keep. Piercing in its pain and misery. The flame on her candle went out as if a soft wind had breezed by.

This couldn't be happening. She couldn't be hearing the woman right now. She was awake. The sweat was clammy on her skin as she waited and hoped this was all a dream. But as sure as she could feel her heart beating in her chest, she could hear the woman's cries. She could hear it echo up the steps in soft lapping waves.

She had finally gone crazy, Rey decided. She'd finally snapped and was experiencing a psychotic break.

Rey was terrified, inhaling the smoke from the candle in panicked gulps of air. She needed to get out of here. She needed to get out of this darkness.

The cries continued and ended on a wail. On the final note, a blue flame ignited on the first step of the stair.

Rey took a step backwards and the cries began again but louder, almost deafening. She was going to faint. Light-headed, and in the midst of a panic attack she tried to find something to focus on.

The blue flame flickered and drew her attention.

 _Come_ , the blue flame beckoned.

Rey didn't realize she had taken a step forward until she noted the silence within the castle's walls, illuminating the soft pitter patter of the raindrops outside. Everything seemed to have quieted as she had come closer. The blue flame now at her feet. Stepping forward onto the stair, a second flame lit the next step.

Lulled by its silent song, she followed.

When Rey reached the bottom step, the flames disappeared. In the darkness, she stood calmly until she felt a tug forward. The first step off the stairs led her into a cave hidden under the castle. Large blue flames ignited over a well and illuminated the walls. Carvings littered the walls in a language that seemed familiar but she could no longer read.

As she neared, the flames flickered purple around the edges. Curious, she came toward the flames and found that they did not emit any heat.

 _Come_ , it beckoned again.

Rey could not disobey. She reached into the fire and did not burn. Instead, the purple flames engulfed her and poured into her a warmth she had been without all her life. She closed her eyes and savored the feeling, worried it would disappear.

 _Yearn no more,_ she felt something whisper across her consciousness before opening her eyes.

Stunned, she could only stare. The cave carvings, the flames and the well were all gone. A man stood before her, whose hand engulfed hers with a possessive heat. His dark eyes glowed in the pale face framed by long black locks. A dark prince had materialized before her.

"It's you," He breathed.

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter was for everyone who needed therapy after TROS. As a community, we have to support each other and this is how I will support you. Here’s to Reylo, a ship that has carried us through so many years.


End file.
